Rebirth: The Weasels
by LocalEccentric
Summary: A look at the birth of seven toon weasels, and the initial bleakness of their existence. Their humble beginnings, meeting and working for Judge Doom, and their life since "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was released in theaters. Rated T for dark themes, cursing, and overall adult situations.


Imagine, if you can, the entire meaning of your existence dumped in your lap with the coldness and shock of a bucket of ice water. There's no time to process your first experience with a world you were pulled into before you're appraised by strange figures in suits, watching as they nod at you in detached approval. A realization descends with the weight of a freight train; _you!_ What is this? You look down – yes, you're seeing things, quite literally for the very first time: Limbs, a torso, a small area to see from, limited. You can't see any more unless you move yourself, which, aside from your eyes, you realize you can't do. Gradually you become aware of something else that's new; touch. The bands holding you to the surface you're on is smooth and rubbery, with an odd elasticity. Then follows the sensation of smell. A sickly sweet odor permeates your nostrils. Later, you find out it's the smell of your freshly drying paint. Sound is the very last sense to arrive, and your entire world will soon revolve around the noise of other people; never your own noise or your own voice.

One of the figures moves forward towards you and you are set free from the clasps binding you to the tray of the giant machine overhead. Immediately the figure speaks to you, and tells you that you're something different from him; a toon. Your voice hesitantly croaks out your first words; "A what?" You're certainly not the first or last toon to ask that! Soon, your animators explain what exactly you're brought to life for. Immediately, you're confused; you were just "born", after all; what meaning would "entertainment" and "Hollywood" have to you? So you're drawn to be an entertainer for other beings like the man condescendingly speaking to you. That's all. You're in for a harsh life of third class citizenship, poor pay, so many closed doors- too many- broken dreams, and people hating you simply because you aren't flesh and blood like them. All the answers that humans seek for a lifetime were explained to you in a few short minutes. They're your creators, your God, and you must be subservient to them as long as you live (which, by the way, is a very, very long time), and you must never show anything but smiles and silliness. The meaning of life was just handed to you. Boy, does it suck!.

Being drawn to life isn't something a toon asks for, obviously. From the day we step off the tray that cradles our cel sheets, from which we emerge after a whirl in a multi-plane camera, to the day some of us are lucky enough to be erased from existence, we live as fully as possible in a world that isn't really meant for us. Toons are basically the ultimate Hollywood creation, especially those drawn in the early years of cinema; we're designed specifically for entertainment, to fulfill predestined roles, forever separated from those who are alive by a 16 millimeter boundary, that only a few toons have come close to crossing. For some, this existence is a prison, but for many it is a paradise. We look at it as neither; it just is what it is. We're living, but not alive. I mean, we can't really die, can we? We have no souls aside from the ones we're drawn with, and once those are erased, we can easily be redrawn and pick up exactly where we left off! We're almost immortal. But there's no point in a creation without some debt to his creator.

Many toons of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, our generation, strove to be nothing more than entertainers for the sake of the public, and the lucky few got better paying jobs as waiters, or civil servants, doing the jobs that were too dangerous for humans. The luckiest among you have the world at their three-toed feet, and can command any emotion from an audience; the perfect vessel for entertainment of the masses. Of course, with toons being drawn only for one specific role, it's very important to stay up to date. That's not up to you, though. You get no control over your own life until after your final paycheck is signed, and from there, you're on your own. You can take comfort in the fact that this experience isn't new; a great many toons have felt as rejected and unfulfilled as you, and a great many more humans live just as you do; unrepresented and undervalued in a crowded slum full of your own kind. The immigrants do it in New York- a faraway land you'll never see, but you hear it's where everyone goes to be a star! No, that's not right, is it? Humans come _here_ to Hollywood to make their mark, not in New York. Waitresses from Idaho, shoeshine boys from Chicago all yearn for Hollywood as a place to make dreams come true and bring a shine to their hum-drum lives. As a toon, you have your name up in lights for a few years, and that's it. Fame really is fleeting, isn't it? But you can see through the humans' talk of dreams, no matter what coast of America is responsible for the realization of dreams.

All you are is the product of somebody else's dream. Everything about you is purely Hollywood, through and through; a human dreams up your character, your personality, and your looks. You're not good enough for a soul, or a heaven; a wellspring from which others like you can pour forth into reality, but instead you're all thought out to the last detail. You're another source of entertainment, with your silly antics, or another sentient stage prop or a thought bubble or an intertitle, but you never fully belong to you. Every thought is the result of somebody else designing it into your brain, every action one of many preconceived by the animation department, and only a few lucky toons can wake up and be self-autonomous. This comes with a price: to be alive, you must give up your inner light. Toons are creatures made up completely of good and pleasant dreams, even the Big Bad Wolf! To be truly free, you have to dim that light to become a creature as dull as the realest reality, breaking the chains that bind you to the dreams of your creator. Usually, that means you have to be willing enough to do it. Toon bodies can't handle strong emotions; you die from too much laughter, and can turn sour or cynical from too much anger and bitterness, like us. But at last, you're your own toon. You can do anything you want, even those things that were initially beyond your skills before. Though, be careful, little Toon, born of dreams and paint; the worst among us can turn pure evil from the change, if enough rage is felt: it corrupts you to the core, cracks your paint, warps your celluloid and curdles every pen stroke of your ink. Mainly, toons who set themselves free are no darker or wicked than the average human being, but the worst of the lot…

Now, knowing all of this, you can see why we turned bitter. It was a smooth transition to pure evil, especially for toons drawn to be villains in the first place. Who could ever think of a nastier character than a weasel, let alone seven weasel thugs? They say we were fated to turn bad! But we know the truth about our beginnings and the truth about Toontown. The few toons that take their apples directly from under God's nose often go unnoticed by the studios and the press and the rest of the seraphim, but that's all right! God's too busy with the rest of His flock to worry about a few errant little imps in Eden. But as a Free Toon like the seven of us, you have to be careful; in every Eden, there's a serpent waiting to strike. A serpent with a voice like death and an equally sepulchral name: Doom.


End file.
